Your engagement, wedding, and honeymoon photos are unoriginal and lame

Over the last few summers, I’ve noticed an off-putting new direction in social networking that, to my mind, could threaten the continued viability of sites like Facebook. I refer, of course, to the constant, overwhelming, seemingly unavoidable deluge of engagement, wedding, and honeymoon photos.

Every time I log onto Facebook (which is admittedly far too often) I’m confronted by highly stylized photos of some impossibly-happy looking couple kissing, holding hands or cuddling in some remote, picturesque location, the profound depth of their love evident in the distant looks on their faces (and the sepia-tone of the background).

I’m sure they’re meant to express some sort of individuality, but if I’m being honest, the only differences I see from one “us” photo to the next is who’s being tagged in the photo and, of course, which photographer’s artful, undoubtedly expensive watermark shows up in the bottom corner.

Engagement photos are the hardest to digest. These stomach-churning snaps, often shot “on location” at some derelict pier or urban alleyway, not only tell you how “quirky” your former high-school friends have become (didn’t you notice her wearing his jacket? And the artisanal offal they’re feeding each other?), they guarantee that you’re in for more. Oh, so much more.

The wedding photos often give some reprieve from the almost suffocating affection. And replace it with mind-numbing repetition.

We get it – guys at weddings like to “shake things up” with a pair of Ray-Bans, and every bride ever just happens to be caught “unposed,” at her most stunning, looking over a shoulder as friends and family weepily button her strapless dress. Also, apparently, empty high heels are meaningful.

Then comes the honeymoon. Let me just say that, no matter how exotic your island retreat, no one wants to see Instagrammed photos of every meal you ate together.

It would be bad enough if it were only the friends tying the knot that showed up in the endless photo-stream. Even at this age, there are only so many weddings that can be fit into a summer. But it gets worse: not just the newly-weds, but every single attendee you know generally shows up in at least some of these photos. Meaning you basically can’t avoid them.

Now it may seem as though I’m a woefully-single cynic who recoils at the slightest display of public affection – and I might be.

But honestly, from the bottom of my conscious brain, I really, genuinely support these couples and their happiness. I’d even be happy to see a shot or two of their special day. But for goodness’s sake, set a limit. It’s your special day, after all. Not everyone-you’ve-ever-met-or-worked-with’s special three weeks.

That typewriter you used for the guest book? And the haunting composition where you stand, slightly blurred, in the background, as the bride looks off to the left in foreground focus? Sorry, they’re not as new and original as you think they are. And even if they were, don’t you think it might be just a bit self-involved to put up 300+ different versions of them overnight, with the express goal of forcing everyone you know to notice (or better yet comment on) just how perfect your life is?

Mike MacDonald is a news editor and writer at Postmedia. His writing also appears weekly in The Onion. When not working, Michael can be found playing crunchy grooves on his ukulele in his Toronto home... read more.View author's profile